


Wherever You Go

by WingsMadeOfTin



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Dead People, I'm bad at tags, Spoilers, angry people, sad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3632988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsMadeOfTin/pseuds/WingsMadeOfTin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Spoilers for 3.06 "Born Again")<br/>Three weeks later, Floki finds himself drawn back to where it happened, and finds he may not be the only one who cannot quite let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherever You Go

It has been three weeks since Odin sent him the sign.  Three weeks since he stole silently into Kattegat, slipped through town, silent as a shadow.  He remembers the way the sound of drums resounded through his chest, thunder through his body, encouragement for the hard beat of his heart.

Three weeks since the gods bade him to remove the blight in their midst.  

Floki has only ever wanted to serve them.  To perform, to the best of his ability, in a manner that would make the gods proud.  He has told himself, he has lost count of the times he has told himself, that all he felt that night was righteousness.  Duty.  Religious fervor.  

He stole silently into Kattegat, and slaughtered the best friend of his oldest friend.

He doesn't remember much after the act itself.  Reaching to feel for any signs of life, and finding none.  And then only a blur -- his breathing harsh in his own ears; dark water along the sides of his boat.  Helga, wide-eyed and afraid, with her fingertips held to her throat, watching him like a doe prepared to bolt.  

_It is done,_ he had said.

_What is?  What have you done?_  

_Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Remember that.  I did nothing._

And then three weeks passed.  The sacred carvings show no sign nor stain of blood.  The world is quiet.  Even the trees are silent, and they have always spoken to Floki before.  He feels the weight of unseen eyes upon him, always.  

He dared not return to Kattegat too soon.  There would be questions.  Suspicions.  Ragnar would be…

Ragnar would be grieving.

Perhaps that is what he was so reluctant to see.  For he knows, and loathes, how close his King had become to the priest.  How could he not know?  This past year Floki has made it his work to watch, to see how deeply into Ragnar the priest has carved his existence.  He knows the death will have hurt him.  That is his only regret.

Three weeks seems safe enough.  He can return, now, and life will return to normal.  The gods will be pleased.  Ragnar will be past his grief.  He will be healed, and all will be well.

Kattegat is quiet when he arrives, which in itself is odd.  Winter is nearly past them.  They will be raiding again, soon.  The town should be restless, ready, like the pulse of blood just beneath skin.  Instead a pall hangs over everything, the sky overcast and dark, and a silence lays thick over all of the buildings like a funeral drape.

He had every intention of walking straight to the main hall.  His feet instead carry him to the small hut that was once the priest's.  Three week old steps retraced.  

He should not, he thinks at the entrance.  There is no reason.  It will be vacant, cleaned out.  Perhaps someone else's entirely by now.  It is dangerous -- do not return to the scene of the act.  There are always eyes on him.  He feels them.  They make him _itch._

When he burst into this home, three weeks ago, he had been surprised to see the priest kneeling before him.  Waiting for him -- that much was obvious.  And so damnably _serene_ , arms spread wide, like wings, staring upward and _smiling_.  

Why was he _smiling?_

He shoves his way inside, and stops.  

Athelstan's home is unchanged.  Everything, every item, sits in its proper place, just as he last saw it.  A book propped up on the floor.  A cross.  The bed made, a mound of furs.  Clothing and leathers folded neatly on a small table.  There are even two candles burning, giving an almost cheerful brightness to this one spot amidst a dark town.  The only sign at all that someone has been in here at all is that the blood has been erased entirely.  

_Why?_

Floki huffed, reaching up to tug at his small tuft of hair.  Traced one of the lines of ink along his face.  Pulled at his ear, staring.  He did not understand.  It had been _three weeks._   That was long enough.  Torstein's women had found themselves new interests after five days, and he had been a good, solid viking man.  

"Why?" he spits.  "Why are you _still here?_ "

"Because," the priest replies, and _he is there_ , stepping out of a shadow, looking for all as thought it never happened, with his hair braided back and Ragnar's old shirt and that same foolish expression, _he is there_ , "Because it does not matter where I go.  Only where _he_ is going."

Floki can only stare for a long moment.  His heart is a drum inside his chest, his ears and his head thundering from the force of it.  This cannot be.  

This _cannot_ be.

And yet:

"Floki."  

" _Priest._ "  

Like they are players reciting lines in a tale that cannot be changed.  

"I killed you," he says.  Because he remembers it too clearly, the slam of his axe into the priest's face.  The crumpling of limbs.  "I _killed_ you."  

"You did," Athelstan agrees.  His voice is gentle, and impossible.  "I am sorry that you had to do that.  But, in a way, I suppose I am grateful that it was you."

He has never heard such a stupid thing in all of his years.  It makes him twitch, and shake his head, and even in death this stupid christian is still so confusing, so _wrong._   Can he not even be properly dead?  "You…What are you? _Draugr?_ Wraith?  Why are you still here?  Go, go home to your," fluttering a hand upward, his lips curled to derisive snarl, "to your dead god and your dead saints and the rest of that.  _Leave us!_   Ruiner!"  Shouting, and he has always been considered slightly mad by the community (and sort of enjoyed that, to be honest) but now he is shouting at _nothing_ , at a shade, at a shadow.  "You are the _worst_ thing to ever come to Ragnar.  I will kill you a hundred more times if I must!"

The priest cocks his head slightly, and spreads his hands, and shrugs.  

Rage colors the world red -- a moment later and Floki has his small axe in hand, roaring as he slices it toward the priest.  Stumbles as he meets with _nothing_ , only the wall behind, for there is no one in front of him now.  

The candles flicker.  He stares at his axe, breathing hard, and turns slowly to look at the room.  

Athelstan is behind him, now. Standing where he died.  

"I am grateful that it was you," he says again.  "You love your gods so much, Floki.  You did it for them.  I understand that.  I always understood that.  I cannot blame you for loving them so much.  In that, we are very much alike."

"I," spitting, "am _nothing_ like you!"  He yanks his axe free, swings again.  Athelstan merely blinks at him, unaffected.  He may as well be trying to kill the wind.  

Floki is capable of many great and terrible things.  But he cannot kill what is already dead.

"Why can I never be rid of you?"  He slumps back against the wall.  "Why can you never just _go?_ "

"Ragnar is here," and another shrug.  "My place is with him.  My path is his."

"You haunt him."  Floki narrows his eyes.  "You would drag him to decay with you."

The priest looks affronted.  "I would never hurt him, Floki."

"Your _existence_ hurts him!"

"I love him."

That brings Floki to a stop.  He had known that, of course.  Known it, hated it.  Hearing it is … different, though.  Hearing it makes him suddenly just… exhausted.

He tucks his small axe back into its belt loop.  It is pointless to wield it here.  He has never done well against an enemy he could not simply hack at until it was no longer a problem, and he has come unprepared to deal with something such as a wight. 

"You love him."

"Yes."

"More than your god?" he sneers.  

Athelstan looks surprised as he considers the question -- it was meant as insult, but of course the priest takes it seriously.  He is so stupid that Floki sometimes wonders how he made it through the world at all.  Perhaps he is too stupid to die properly.  

"I had tried for a long time," Athelstan finally says, "to find a way to serve two masters.  For so long I was afraid that it was impossible."

"It is _not_ possible. Your god and our gods can _never_ co-exist."

The priest blinks at him.  "You misunderstand.  My other master was never the norse gods."

And, well, that brings Floki up a bit short.   

Athelstan smiles.  "The day you killed me, God spoke to me.  He came to me, Floki.  After all this time, finally.  And I finally understood.  It is not about choosing.  It is about the worlds, our hearts, being large enough for _all_ of it.  We are not given a finite amount of love.  We do not have to turn our backs on all else in order to face one direction.  I understand it, now, that the more you love the more you _can_ love.  Your heart grows only larger.  Yes, I love God. I love Ragnar just as much.  That is why I stayed.  That is why I stay."

"Have you been to see him?"

"No.  Not yet.  He is not ready."  The candles dip again, as Athelstan bows his head.  For the first time he looks sad, _truly_ sad.  "There are things he has sworn to do, and until then he will not let himself be consoled.  Not even by me."

The light in the room seems… wrong.  It is more than the guttering of the candle flames.  There is a darkness that presses in from the corners.  

"What are you doing?"  He steps forward, swiping at Athelstan like he were a cloud of gnats.  The priest vanishes, less than smoke, and the room goes fully dark.  "What are you doing?  You cannot _hurt_ me, priest!  I killed you!  You are not even angry, you are so stupid!  You are _nothing!_ "

_I never said,_ comes a whisper by his ear, _that I was not angry._

Floki flinches away, spins, lashes out at nothing.  There is nothing.  He snarls at the empty space, kicks the book across the floor and smacks down the wooden cross with an open palm, stomping on it until it is only broken wood.  "What can you do to me?" he shouts, and laughs.  "What can _you_ do to _me?_ "

_Nothing._

_I am dead, after all._

_But, Floki._

_You hurt someone I love._

_Hurt him dearly._

There is a commotion from just outside.  Floki turns to stare at the entryway, because now he, too, understands.  

"He knows?"

There is no reply from Athelstan.  

The door is torn aside, and Floki meets the terrible cold eyes of Ragnar Lothbrok.

 


End file.
